You know what's weird? Classic rock stations near me have started playing 90s music, so not only do you have the usual, you now have alternative rock mixed in.

Classic Rock radio plays the same songs over and over until I never want to hear them again. Of the hundreds of charting rock songs during any given year, they can't somehow play songs that people might have forgotten about?

Also, I know that some bands still make old-style rock music, just like some metal bands still play in an old-school way. How about throwing some of them into the rotation?

Here's another vote for a Led Zeppelin song.

I heard "Whole Lotta Love" in the car the last time I went out for fast food. Never liked that one. I get that the band is influential, and if I had been alive in 1969 then maybe "I'm gonna give you every inch of my love" would have sounded daring and fresh. But hearing that song now, it hasn't aged nearly as well as "Stairway."

All the classic rock stations I know seem to think Nothing Else Matters and Smooth by Santana are legendary rock classics.
Enough. Enough, I say!

Haha, not surprised to see so many against Hotel California. More than anything the local radio stations here play "Sweet Child O Mine". But it is still cool to listen to that once in a while.

Probably "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" or something by the Beach Boys.

But I don't hear those on the station I listen to. I do hear lots of annoying 80s synth pop.

My work played the local classic rock station "96.7, playing the classics EVERYONE in the office can agree on" for a solid year, everytime I hear "gimme three steps" by Lynryd Skynyrd I get flashbacks to that awful, awful summer. "Carry on my wayward son" always got on my nerves but after hearing it on average 3-4 times a week for almost a year, it kinda makes me wanna slice my veins open everytime I hear that opening chrous. I'm torn between the two.

ZZ Top. ban 'em. I am so tired of hearing ZZ Top

So many of my least favorites have been mentioned - Boston, Foreigner, the Eagles, and Tom Petty - so I think I'll go with Stone in Love by Journey.

Any of the 4-ish Def Leppard songs they frequently play. Utter shit, all of them.

Came to post Whole Lotta Love, god damn is that song repetitive. It's a cool riff and all, but not good enough to be the only damn riff in the song.

Yeah, and there's also that stretch of about 90 seconds in the middle where not much happens. Wikipedia tells me there's an edited version of "Whole Lotta Love" that's only 3:10, although even trimming the fat won't make me appreciate that song. I don't need to hear that chorus ever again.

Given the universal dislike of this format, I have a few questions that I hope you all can answer -

1. Who actually listens to classic rock stations? No one seems to like them, but they're everywhere.

2. What criteria determines whether a song is "classic"?

3. What keeps them from falling victim to "overplay apathy"?

Is it possible that clearchannel and other radio companies have ties to record labels or the music industry that makes them determine what songs live and what songs fade? There must be a lot of royalty money in the constant airplay, for both musicians and labels.

Anything shitty by Led Zeppelin is immediately forgiven by this song:



As for terrible classic rock songs, fuck "The Joker" by Steve Miller Band. It is a daunting task indeed to form into words my eternal disgust with that "piece the collective feces of every species known to man" that some refer to as a "song". That song is "laughably bad". Laughably, in the same sense as the newsroom scene in Tim Burton's Batman, or the infamous "Killing Joke" sketch by Monty Python. That song brings to mind a douchebag with an acoustic guitar playing softly and douchily in a coffee shop, just before Chuck Schuldiner barges in and beheads the douche with the opening riff to "Choke on It". And I'm not even done..."Rock n' Me" is another god-awful song. This song alone is a crime against humanity, amongst such atrocities as the Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking, the Amazing Spider Man, and Pol Pot. Luckily for Steve Miller, I do like "Fly Like an Eagle" and "Jet Airliner", and otherwise will focus all of my eternal hate on Bon Jovi and U2.

One song is not enough. No, not nearly enough. How on earth do these rock radio stations stay in "business" so to speak when they play the same crap all the time? It's horrendously monotonous and dumb. There's no way there's a big enough market of people that want to hear the same forty songs over and over.

It's a shame too, because there are some good artists played occasionally too (I'm super fond of Neil Young, Boston, ZZ Top etc.)... But even getting stuck listening to the same one or two songs by those guys will make you hate them. My dad said decades ago, when he was my age, they used to play full albums on the radio. What I would do to see a day when that happens again man...

EDIT: Okay, if I had to pick one.... Billy Idol and his stupid white wedding bullshit.

Hating U2!?!? Wha? I just don't even know what to say other than

My radio stations must be cool cause they usually play some deeper cuts. But I would say any AC/DC song of the Back in Black. Hate that album.

Man, I do hate me some Hotel California, but if I could banish one song from classic radio forever it would have to be "Blinded By The Light". The worst part about that one is the chorus which manages to get stuck in my head on repeat. It's like coming into contact with somebody harboring a nasty cold. I don't even need full exposure.

I think its funny people think there is a shitty Led Zeppelin song. Blasphemy!

Are you kidding me? White Wedding owns!

Depends. I think (I don't know if these are the titles, I'm just going of the choruses) In the Name of Love, Bloody Sunday and Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For are overplayed to hell and I would gladly do away with those. But the rest of their stuff is okay.

I'm the opposite since I hate U2 and think those are really some of the only good songs they did...

Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer. Holy shit, that song is overplayed as hell over here! Literally, whenever I drive my car, the song just pops up. Not to mention, the song is kinda like a "party" anthem to Top 40 worshipers and pre-pubescent EDC kids.

On a random note, they should play more Fleetwood Mac

I'm not an uber U2 fan or anything but they are one of the few non metal bands I really enjoy. I usually only listen to the big hits but I can and will occasionally listen to whole albums. Fucking Bono just has an amazing voice that I could listen to all day long.

Im sure Bono has amazing talent, I just hate his (and the rest of the band's) self indulgence.
I can never make it past that "LOOOOOOOOOVE is tempuhull!!!" part in "One" without projectile vomiting at the off button.
When I hear their songs without a little less indegistible schmaltzy pretentiousness and a little more simplicity, I can admit they have damn good songs though.

Agree with "That's What I LIke About You"...really annoying. Another song that ruins my day is Bachman Turner Overdrive's "You Aint Seen Nothing Yet". Never been a fan of stuttering vocals, including The Who's "My Generation", but that song is ace compared to:

"B-b-b-baby you just aint seen n-n-nothing yet!"

I haven't listened to rock radio since I quit substitute teaching back in 2007, though even then I was shuffling through my CD collection as I was usually bored to tears by what would come on. There are a few songs that come to mind as obvious candidates, though I'm having a hard time deciding on just one.

1. Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way
2. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
3. The Who - Who Are You?
4. The Rolling Stones - Start Me Up
5. Eric Clapton/Derek And The Dominoes - Layla

And if we're counting 90s songs and so-called newer classics in the mix since some stations were even starting to play them back in '07, add anything off of Green Day's "American Idiot" and most of the first half of Nirvana's "Nevermind".

I throw in my vote for Aerosmith, although I honestly hate most classic rock in general and avoid classic rock radio

Since Hotel California & Sweet Home alabama are already mentioned, I'l toss in Pink Floyd's "The Wall." Well actually all their songs from that one album is terrible.
"Who listens to Classic Rock stations?" My parents, of course. Also, My grandma listens to Country & Country Rock, I just wanted to throw that in.
Interestingly, Me & my sister DO like most of the songs mentioned in this thread.

I feel the need to add anything by Status Quo, and from the slightly newer stock, "Beds Are Burning" by Midnight Oil. Both horrible things.

You should totally just burst randomly into it in the middle of a gig, I'm not sure if I'd laugh or throw my drink at you and I'm intrigued to see how I'd react on a purely scientific level.

Especially with the faggotry gob-fest known as Black Friday and hearing that intro to that title song play EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. every 30 seconds where I work at, I kid you not. It just adds fuel to my dislike of anything from the Johnson-era.

The radio edit version of Light my Fire by The Doors. They usually cut it right before the keyboard solo kicks in and thus manage to kill the entire song.

Lemme also throw in Ted Nugent's Cat Scratch Fever. Extremely boring with one of the most lackluster choruses in songs that are on classic rock stations.

You know what, I take back what I said about The Wall, it doesn't get as much airplay as Journey's "Don't stop believing." I swear, if I hear that song one more time, I gonna tear down the west wing.

"Don't Stop Believing" is one of those songs I can't bring myself to hate. Every time I think it's annoying me, I just end up singing along to it anyway.

Workin' hard to get my fill~

Seconding this as long as we're being pretty liberal about what we call "classic rock" (as a lot of the picks in this thread indicate). I could do away with never hearing any Motley Crue, AC/DC, or Guns N Roses ever again, but within that entire spectrum of shit, Livin on a Prayer is the one that gets on my nerves the worst.
As far as older stuff goes, I love Neil Young but "Heart of Gold" is such a boring and repetitive song and it's insulting to listen to radio stations just compress all his work into that shitty representation of his career.

Is it 25 years old or older? If yes, CLASSIC ROCK.
If no, come back in 25 years. I can't wait for Nickelback to inevitably be deemed "classic rock".

Let it Be by The Beatles.

I fucking hate that song.

AC/DC's Back in Black. Or You Shook Me All Night Long. Overplayed much?

I ban 'I Want You To Want Me' by Cheap Trick from ever being played on classic rock radio stations again. Cheap Trick have written some great rock songs but all you ever hear is this piece of pap.

Oh and I'd ban '(Don't Fear) The Reaper' by Blue Oyster Cult due it being the only BOC song radio stations know.